


Bitter Copper

by orphan_account



Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher (Video Game)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Explicit Language, Gen, Heavy Angst, Hurt No Comfort, Implied/Referenced Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-19
Updated: 2020-08-19
Packaged: 2021-03-05 23:33:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,346
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25983664
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: It's easy to be dismissive of a bastard, especially when their attitude matches their heritage. No one is obligated to understand; Honey is more palatable than poison. Yet sometimes when the veil slips it drives a quest for answers.Even the strongest soldier can be wounded without a wielded weapon.Even Vernon Roche can become fragile when exposed.
Comments: 1
Kudos: 16





	Bitter Copper

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this in January.

There was something about his eyes that were unsettling; a reflection that humans usually didn’t possess. Pupils could change over time - Burgundy to gray, diamond to marine. Even the old cat eyes of Vesemir had a quality that was different from Lambert or even his own. 

But Vernon Roche’s contained something else. A darkness that intrigued him and that he could spot without using a potion in the night.

When they first met, his eyes were as black as coal and cold as a northern wind. There existed no warmth, only bleakness and distrust. They didn’t change in Flotsam, even after he had joined his flimsy, uncoordinated attacks. Even in good spirits they still were harsh. Ves had remarked it was just the way Roche was - always had been - yet he could see something else. Not possession by demons or hyms, but a strange shadow that loomed over him. One that wrapped around him like a cloak.

It murdered all light in his eyes.

Knowing slivers of his past helped a little into unraveling the strange mystery of what turned out to be an abrasive, furious man. His names were numerous: Whore’s son. Foltest’s dog. Hated bastard. Brutal torturer. It accounted for his actions and brashness - There were clear shows of his self-consciousness in his beatings, like he was a scared child trying to show he wasn’t afraid. Yet the bursts of his trained power during combat proved he was ranked for a reason. A skilled fighter that somehow danced with uncertainty when caught off guard outside of a bloodbath, like a sleeping chaos. He liked being a tactician and thrived on information, but his pride and anxiety overpowered him beyond it at times. He was sociopathic when he was confused; Sloppy when nothing went his way.

All this didn’t explain the brooding, though. The brief cuts of vulnerability that seemed to haunt him, even before the helplessness of losing every soldier - possibly every line of trust - he ever had. Vernon Roche dwelled on things when he assumed no one would notice. Like a howling wind that would die down in the night; His suffering he hid like a child with a precious gift.

But _he_ noticed.

It was in Loc Muinne, where the sun breathed against stone, that he caught the true sense of such a man. His eyes had shifted in guilt and loss so frequently, to where he could see flecks inside the mud, that it was hard to remember what they had been. Iron-splashed copper; Coal-rich amber. His window to the world was stained with the earth of Temeria and drops of blood and they had stopped pulling back. When other eyes weren’t upon him, his flaws became exposed, and the confidence shrunk along with his waist. He withdrew into himself, his focus growing glazed even in the shade, and it took him a while to see it fully. How it unfolded when Roche was deaf to the world.

It clicked a memory in himself that he almost could feel, but it would slip away. All that lingered after was reflection; One he used to study Roche while he was lost.

He was frighteningly young for someone to lose as much as he had. A trifle compared to others, but he could see and sense with his stuttering heart that each death took away a lot more than he made obvious. The grooves under his eyes had been set young; malnutrition. Something he had tasted at times. But they remained on Roche’s skin, burrowing down, carving the first signs of burden. His eyes held in more, like a pool tucked deep in a cave. One full of murk and caution, but hidden for a reason. Aching from what his past had inflicted; Corpses that had shaped his reality.

It made him lean in, snapping Roche’s melancholic expression to one of irritation, but he had to see more into his strangeness. To try and understand him in a fuller context before he learned not to be so exposed and lost in himself. 

Truly, Roche was classified by rumor; Even Thaler called him a prick, but one to listen to. Yet he had fallen for the act like everyone else. Coming to blows with him in Flotsam, nearly taking the side of elves to chase after Letho without regard for Roche’s initial sacrifice. Vernon purposely was abrasive, as if he knew the better option was to always disregard him, almost daring anyone to so his copper eyes could be scrubbed deeper with mistrust and affirmation.

Only he stayed. Past it all, through the politics, even to contemplating leaving Triss - Triss, who he was bound to - to study Roche more; Restless and stupid as he was. Just to see deeper into his eyes. For what could make a human turn into such a thing?

His head tilted down, his expression turning to a scowl, but he ignored it. The angle didn’t change what he could see. Behind it all, he saw the glimpse of his thoughts.

He knew what he had wanted; He felt it so many years ago.

“It’s death isn’t it?” he asked, nearly in a whisper, and Roche blinked.

“What?” he said, his tone sharp with confusion, only there was a hint of shock in it. No one had guessed his weakness to that point.

“That’s what you’re after, isn’t it? Death?”

He blinked again, his expression changing, but his eyes remained the same color. Umber mixed with clay, tossed on a painter’s palette. “Geralt, the fuck are you on about?”

That was his cue to lean back, to take in the man - no, boy - in front of him. All mysteries had a conclusion. He was probably just a child when he was roaming the countryside as a new Witcher. Vernon, born into poverty and sludge, marked with the ghost of the unseen he himself had met too many times. Death was an inevitability, but the shadow over Roche, the one that kept his skin sallow and his pain grafted to his core, was overly accepted. He didn’t welcome it like the mad; it haunted him from afar and he didn’t seem interested in exorcising it. As if it was a part of him now. He chose to make it a friend.

It explained why he disregarded his life so fast. What was the point when his soul was so close to slipping away? After all, in the bleakest hours, Death was a good friend. It knew just what to say to lure one into its embrace.

Roche was becoming a phantom. If he wasn't careful, he would be consumed by himself.

“Geralt,” Roche repeated. “The fuck were you going on about?”

He contemplated telling him. That even if he wasn’t a witcher, he could see Roche had the fingertips of wraiths waiting to tear into his flesh through the shadow of life. Every body that crossed the veil before him added to the gloom that was home in his eyes. Foltest’s death had only accelerated it, and every fallen Blue Stripes left scars in his pupils. There was anger - there always would be - but behind it he could see a rawness he had dismissed before. Roche had been his jailer. A whoreson digging with stupid questions while he sat bleeding on his own chair. A bitterness nearly took root in himself over it, as his back would probably never heal, but on the other side it was almost a cosmic play.

For his wounds, Roche suffered more. Giving him scars would be too easy at that point as he had weathered them before. Weakening his entire foundation was more effective, and he was witnessing the starting of an aftermath. Roche was willing to die because it was all he had left. The shivering of his heart was already pointing to an unseen emptiness he was refusing to verbalize and it had accumulated to that point.

Like it or not, Vernon Roche was secretly suicidal. He was near the brink of a cliff that was falling apart.

His words were chosen carefully, his own eyes unable to leave the burned oak of Roche’s. "Nothing."

"Bullshit." He said it in a hurt tone; He knew what he was thinking.

How fast his eyes were drowned with the haunting pain he refused to let go of. Like a wolf over its fresh kill; He dared him to try to separate his desires from his soul. 

"Roche-"

"Fucking what, Witcher?" He spat. He was agitated now and purposely looking to wound. But Roche had forgotten one thing; Underestimating his enemy and friends as he did countless times before. Even though he picked his lines carefully, there was something he couldn’t forget, and the rising tension between them built a sourness in his mouth. He pressed him for a hard answer in a small bit of revenge for his back. Pushing him for the both of them.

No matter how much he barked, he hadn’t forgotten the bite of the flogging whip.

“If I go find Triss, what will you do?” he said. It was meant to be cutting and quick. "I don't recall I ever said I'd help you with Anais."

Immediately he could see vicious wounds surface. There was a muted reaction to his question, but the lack of anger in his face told him he had emotionally torn deep into the former Commander. In an instant, it was like he had struck him with an open hand, and all pretext between them dropped. He became raw; Far beyond honest. The tension grew palatable with undiluted human detachment.

For a second, he nearly witnessed an internal collapse. It touched his heart for a second with guilt and before he could fix it, Roche spoke.

“I’ll go find Anais,” he tried to declare, but it came out like a pup’s first whimper for a mother. “She needs saving.”

“By yourself?”

His anger was easy to predict at that point. It swelled and was heightened by betrayal. “No, Geralt. I’ll waltz in with all the ploughing dancers and singers here to annoy everyone. Of course by myself! You clearly don't want to fucking help!”

Again, he was welcoming death to join his side. Acting as if his anger could mask the anguish; If he didn’t acknowledge it, he couldn’t dwell on it. And if he didn’t dwell on it, he wouldn’t have to feel. It was a flurry of emotions he knew too well. Action meant not thinking which was always the better choice than hearing the silence that consumed the brain.

“Roche,” he tried, pausing as he himself struggled to tell him he understood and to forgive; Feelings such as this weren’t welcome for his mind either. It gave Vernon too wide of an opening and he took full advantage.

“What?” he snapped. Too quick for it to be a mere reaction and hot with fury and loathing. For both of them at that point. He had rubbed salt into Roche’s already opened wounds, telling him he was weak. Unintentionally mocking, though he didn’t mean to, and the anger it brought up only tired him. It was Flotsam and the peasants all over again.

Yet his mind slid back to Triss instead of to an apology. He had opened that door - Where was she? What if she was suffering worse?

For the minute he hesitated, thinking on what to do, forgetting what he had said, it caused the light to sink out from Roche’s face. His eyes flicked down, his face rushing hot, and he spoke before he could catch what happened.

He didn't anticipate for him to read his eyes; To understand his private thoughts.

He hadn't meant his words to be a decision.

“If the Nilfgaardians have Triss, you’re going to have a hell of a battle.”

That made him blink, distracted. Roche refused to look at him but the darkness had already clearly consumed him. He was blanking himself and shutting him off; Pushing him away.

“I can make a distraction in the Kaedweni camp.” His voice was solid yet weak. “But not for long. So you’d better be quick.”

“I never said-”

Roche shoved past him, purposely knocking his shoulder into his, ending their conversation with physical pain to mask whatever else had surfaced. He moved with hurried intent, his steps hard against the limestone, sending dust into the air and faint imprints of a soldier’s boot to linger behind. He made his choice, and the shadows chased after him, almost gleefully knowing that his self-slaughtering mission could finally come true. He didn’t give him a chance to explain or apologize. He had decided it on his own.

Because it was _easier._

His stubbornness was irritating, almost suffocating, and he had to rub his eyes despite everything he had assessed. He was acting like a whoreson because he had been exposed and the blame would be placed upon him. He deserved it, but not the amount that Roche had decided to ordain. They both weren’t faultless, but his back was still marred forever and Triss missing in a sea of enemies. 

He had just been curious about how deep he wanted to hide himself. It wasn’t a proclamation or a choice; Now death was going to drink heartily that day.

For a moment, he lingered and cast his gaze back. To where the black flags of the sun were hung, fluttering in the mountain wind. Triss needed him; His lover, companion, and friend. The primary reason at that point for which he trailed Letho. She was his priority. Was seeing another man’s vulnerability enough to break that? Did he really owe Roche anything at that point? Was a man who was willingly drowning worth the scars it would cost?

Was Vernon Roche worth anything so grand or sacrificial?

The guilt filled him, but not for long. With a heavy sigh, he breathed, and slowly made a decision. It wasn’t about the mystery anymore; One of them needed him.

He only hoped the other would understand and not dwell in the aftermath.


End file.
